Page 36 of The Moonlight Healers

“That’s a strange thing to be excited about.”

“I’ll take whatever victories I can get today.”

Helene started to smile. “What’s it like?” She wanted him to be light again, to keep pretending. “Your home. Montreal?”

Thomas shook his head. “No disrespect intended, but a hell of a lot nicer than what I’ve seen of France.”

Helene couldn’t argue with that.

“I’m from just outside of Montreal, a little town called Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.”

“That’s quite the name.”

Thomas removed the top of his canteen, swigging the last few drops before wiping his mouth. “We can’t all be from lovely-sounding places like Honfleur.”

Helene wanted to steer the conversation back to Thomas. She much preferred to ask him the questions, to learn about his life. Her own existence had been filled with the hopelessness and tedium of occupation for so long. She needed to remember a world away from the war, one with the possibilities only peacetime could allow. “What is there to do in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu?”

“There’s a river,” Thomas said. “And a canal. A fort and a railroad. It’s all quite grand as you can imagine.”

“And your parents?”

Thomas opened his mouth to speak but then hesitated. Helooked down at one of his hands and picked at the dirty nailbed. “My father owns a textile factory. My mother was a nursery school teacher, before they met.”

“They must be proud of you. For coming here.”

Thomas swallowed. “No, not really.” He looked back up at her. “I enlisted, right after I turned eighteen. My mother cried when I told her. My father left the room.”

“I don’t understand.” Helene had never seen her grandfather prouder, even through his sorrow, as when his sons went off to fight the Germans before the surrender.

Thomas picked up a smooth, black rock and tossed it out toward the water. It landed with a splash. “They don’t think it’s our war. Not my father. Not most of the people where I’m from. When my father finally did speak to me, he said I was being reckless, acting like a child, fighting someone else’s war.”

So many in Helene’s country, too many, believed the same as Thomas’s father, that as long as their lives continued in a faint outline of what they had been before the war, it wasn’t their business, that collaboration was preferable to fighting. It was why France’s leaders had surrendered so easily, chose capitulation to Germany. Thomas had lived on the other side of the world, in safety, and yet he was willing to fight for the good of the world.

“I don’t think it’s childish,” she said.

Thomas picked up another rock and turned it over in his hand.

“I think it’s brave,” Helene continued. Her voice was shaky but she plunged forward, the words inside her suddenly urgent. Because he was kind and held her gaze when she spoke. Because soon they would take him away. “It’s not childish. Your father was wrong. No one is fighting here. We’re all just living beside them and letting them do whatever they want and take whatever they want.” She paused. “And you all tried.” She could still hear the sounds of the dying soldiers in her ears, all those boys who would never see their homes again. “And that matters.”

“Does it?” Thomas asked.

Helene wanted to memorize his face, the way his nose curved slightly at the bottom, the scar on his chin, the swirls of white in the gray of his eyes, the crease on his forehead as he watched her.

“I think it’s all that matters,” she replied.

There were footsteps on the rocks behind them, a nurse perhaps, or a German soldier, rounding up the last of the walking wounded. Thomas eased himself onto his back. “It’s time to leave now, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I think it is,” she said as she shifted her weight to look over her shoulder.

Her body went rigid. Lieutenant Vogel stood a few feet away, one hand on his pistol as he blinked into the sun.

Helene tried to rise to her feet, but her legs were unresponsive. She put out a hand as Vogel stepped toward them and raised his gun. She scrambled onto her knees, trying to place herself between them. But Vogel was focused on Thomas, who lay on his back, eyes closed, his chest rising and falling.

“No,” Helene heard herself say.

Thomas opened his eyes and lifted his head, his mouth half-open in surprise.

“Get out of the way,” Vogel said through gritted teeth. He pointed the gun at Thomas, whose face drained of all color.

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